Facilitating Neuron-Specific Genetic Manipulations in Drosophila melanogaster Using a Split GAL4 Repressor.

ABSTRACT: Efforts to map neural circuits have been galvanized by the development of genetic technologies that permit the manipulation of targeted sets of neurons in the brains of freely behaving animals. The success of these efforts relies on the experimenter's ability to target arbitrarily small subsets of neurons for manipulation, but such specificity of targeting cannot routinely be achieved using existing methods. In Drosophila melanogaster, a widely-used technique for refined cell type-specific manipulation is the Split GAL4 system, which augments the targeting specificity of the binary GAL4-UAS (Upstream Activating Sequence) system by making GAL4 transcriptional activity contingent upon two enhancers, rather than one. To permit more refined targeting, we introduce here the "Killer Zippe

SUBMITTER: Dolan MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5499185 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature